I have and odd question. As a final year student at EE course (thesis is a complex FPGA project) I am starting to get concerned about future job. I would like to ask, whether someone can present his opinion about job market when it comes to FPGA designers in Europe (getting USA visa is difficult, probably not worth trying). I have found several job offers for senior ( >7 years of experience) engineers, but few to none for graduates or juniors. Most universities don't teach ASIC design, and that's also very common job requirement. While teaching yourself software developement is relatively easy, self- studying ASIC and very advanced FPGA design is almost impossible without good mentor/practice/real-life-experience.
Can anyone relate to this? Were this studies big mistake?
Generally, FPGA design is a marketable skill. Many companies have abandoned ASIC's as being far too expensive.
For example, the major telecom wired, and wireless suppliers can not afford a 2 million $ mask, and have embraced FPGAs almost to the exclusion of developing their own ASICs.
Are ASIC's completely dead? No, of course not. Cell Phones, game consoles, and basically anything that can afford the capital investment, still will use an ASIC.
But, more and more ASIC designers are finding themselves surplus. Xilinx still hires ASIC designers, but we definitely have our choice of hiring only the finest at present (a buyer's market).
ASSP devices have had a renaissance of sorts, as if there is a specific chip that does the job, it is often preferable to developing an ASIC, and often is less expensive than a FPGA. The issue with an ASSP, is that anyone can buy and use it, so you are automatically facing competition (and low margins).
Myself, I prefer an employer that enjoys 60%+ margins: clean restrooms, garbage pickup, a nice cafeteria must come from somewhere (after all, it isn't free), and 40% margin companies enjoy none of that...
Although it is discouraging to see job listings that all require experience, the smart student has already been employed as a summer intern, and has that experience.
If you go to school, and expect people to hire you when you get out, with never having used any of your skills (summer job, intern, etc), you will be at a disadvantage, regardless of skill set.
I got into FPGA design by filling a need a company had while doing board design. Thats typical unless the company specifically targets junior engineers. Good luck.
People looking for making a life long job decision based on a single skill, are likely to be strongly disappointed at some point in their ability to get and keep a job. Serous breadth not only allows for greater choices in initial hiring out of school (because you are useful to employers in many different product roles) but in your ability to work in your field for the next 60 years. All forms of engineering (not just narrow EE roles) including materials, mechanical, industrial, software, computer, control systems, RF and power give you the breadth to take small project from cradle to grave (which would otherwise require a team of a dozen or more specialists that might well cause the product to fail as a committee camel).
You gain those skill sets by actively choosing significant diversity in your electives, your choices for internships, your choices for part time work in school, and your choices for part and full time work after graduation. Specifically choosing to go to work for small companies, is often an important job choice in your lifetime, as smaller companies doing product development frequently need individuals capable of successfully wearing multiple hats in a project ... or choosing a large company where mobility between many different product areas.
The ability to grow into effective roles as a project lead, architect or product manager require the abilities to visualize, and understand a broad range of skills necessary to see the product from conception to customer ship and beyond.
If at some point you choose to start your own business or branch out into high value consulting, the ability to understand not only the specific technology, but the application it's being applied will be critical to your success.
Your years at school are just the foundation for a lifelong learning quest ... you are almost certainly never going to make a successful living on just what you were taught at school ... except the ability to learn any task set before you.
Find mentors everywhere you go ... in school, in life, in your family, in your job ... talk about life skills that enabled successes, and choices that lead to failures, and reflect on those stories in ways that affect your life ... learn from others mistakes and failures.
As an employer, project leader, small business owner, and mentor working with students and young engineers I've seen a common tread ... the toughest period for every grad is the first couple jobs where project responsibility is passed to the newbie engineer, and they have to face the initial struggle of "I wasn't taught that in school" and are forced to understand they MUST learn the project, and become the expert for that product. For some that growth happens in the first several weeks of their first job, for others it might be 3-7 years down the road while facing some very difficult project demands and inner reflections about ones abilities. Poor managers might miss this allowing you to fail, better managers will make sure the right mentoring is in place to capitalize on your personal growth.
I generally suggest looking at working for smaller engineering companies, both while in school, and after graduation, that allow you to expand your skills, and grow professionally in ways that avoid a narrow dead end specialized job will only set you up for failure later in life when there are radical changes in technology that obsolete your narrow skill set.
I am engaged in (high level) software development since this is the way I can make a living during studies. Sometimes this is the only choice (better then weekend work at supermarket).
I enjoy programming logic, making tests for them and creating firmware because I can see my result in physical implementation (at the end, there is usually a device that does something)
I would love to broader my knowledge, but sometime lack ideas, because I live and work in limited environment
Second of all: How can one specialize for senior job (those which require many years of experience) and keep developing skills in such a broad technology range to find employment in case given technology goes out of use?
Third, last of all: I never thought that 5 year study are going to provide knowledge for life long job, but concerning current situation, it seems that there was no point in spending these 5 years in EE as there are very few job offers for starters (this included low paid internships).
That's why I am asking. How does it look in Europe? Maybe I am looking at wrong message boards look for a job? Almost no internships offered. Almost no entry level jobs ( or even better, job offer for entry engineer but with multiple years of experience - I guess that salary is for entry).
I must be missing a big picture? If not, it seems that EE is in very poor condition.
Hi freeplatypus, actually, I change my employer in August. So I want to tell you some things about my jobsearch. The best thing is presenting your CV on websites like monster or networking platforms like XING. I got a lot of good and interesting job offers, which were never mentioned on the classic platforms or search engines for jobs. So try this. Just one thing: In germany a lot of companies have problems to get good and enough engineers.
I'm from Denmark. I got a degree including PhD in EE ten years ago, with the plan to do research in physics. However, at the time no job offers were available, so I started in the software development field. This, despite the complete lack of any credited skill in that area; I had basically only programmed some numerical simulations. But the job situation was good at the time, and they basically hired anything that could stand on two legs!
I've survived the big bubble (crash of the IT market ca. five years ago), including the close-down of the branch I worked for. Almost 400 IT professionals managed to find new jobs within at most half a year.
I've changed jobs since then, my recent job started four years ago. About two years ago I got tired of doing SW development, and I was very lucky to be able to relocate to FPGA programming within my present employment. I'm loving it every minute, and I feel very lucky to have gotten this opportunity, because I had absolutely no experience before.
However, ten years ago I would never have dreamt I would be doing this kind of work.
To summarize:
1) Your carreer may not necessarily develop linearly. Mine certainly has not.
2) In Denmark all the companies are screaming for IT professionals. We have a shortage of highly skilled professionals, and it's getting worse. Since you are in Europe, you should consider moving here. The weather really is not that bad :-)
Oh, and one more thing. Only about 1/4 of all jobs are advertised on message boards, bulletins, etc. These methods are only used, if the company looking to hire, cannot find a reasonable candidate any other way. It is a kind of "last resort" for most companies.
Instead, they rely on word of mouth, a.k.a. networking. This is where you should focus your energy. Get to know other professionals in your field. Where are they working? What's it like working there? Are there any job openings coming up? Do they know of other companies looking to expand?
Use all your friends, present colleagues, former colleagues, family, etc. Let all of them know what you are looking for.
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